On Friendship, Accountability, and Love

We superintendents in Missouri are participating in an evaluation process about our own ministries as we also evaluate each of the pastors in our district. One of the questions on our self-evaluation form is something like "Are you a part of any accountability group?" We have been pretty big in Missiouri about asking our pastors to be part of "covenant groups" as we usually call them. This question is often asked of local church pastors. But to what accountability groups are d.s.s to belong? I think most folks reading this would realize issues arising from being a part of such groups, in which your dreams and hurts and celebrations and challenges are shared may be inhibited by the presence of a d.s. This question of finding supportive people who will tell me the truth was my greatest challenge my first year on the district. Cut off from the kind of structure of relationships that the local church brings, it was a challenge. The "friendship web" as I call it had to expand to include new folks; it has to reach into the past to renew some relationships that may have once been rich and deep that can be again; and it also means that you have to work at it more, quite frankly.

I have shared the names over the last 3 and a half years I have been blogging here of those with whom I am closest who are parts of that web---Susan, Kendall, Dick, Cody, Yolanda, our office staff and Kevin B. (Ah, that problem of naming names means someone may be left out..if its you, I am sorry.) Today our newly shaped Committee on the District Superintendency met to organize and think about some goals for this year. Steve Breon, senior pastor at Platte Woods, is our chair. The group members are some of those who will be evaluating my ministry, along with some other clergy and laity, who will all give input to the bishop. This committee functioned closely to the way a local church PPR committee functions with the pastor. I am blessed by all those who were present today and those who were unable to be there, who willingly are giving "over and above" type time to advocate, support and hold me accountable in ministry. I continue to be blessed by Kevin Buckrucker, whose friendship and cheerleading are a gift far and above anything I could have asked or imagined in shaping the ministry of the district and "being there" for me.

This week I have been reading parts of An Emergent Manifesto of Hope by Tony Jones and Doug Pagitt, both leaders in the Emergent Village community. Doug talks about how he wants to best describe the relationships that folks who are drawn together over the issues of postmodernity and the church; how to be in authentic community together at this time in our world; how to be culturally relevant and biblically sound---and many other issues that are a part of the emergent conversation. Doug shares the scripture from John 15 where Jesus uses the image of the vine and the branches to describe his relationship with the disciples. Jesus also says in that same scripture that he no longer calls his followers "servants" but "friends." Pagitt reminds us that authentic friendship entails "openess, vulnerability and risk" and as helpful an image that "servant leadership" is, maybe we could think about friendship as being the essential model for being in relationship with one another in community. I think there is room for both images. The picture I chose to put with this entry is of a quilt pattern called "Friendship Ring". Interlocking circles, surrounding each other colors changing hues as they overlap, connections made, blended, even traveling outside the quilt itself, all surrounded by bamboo, a plant that is used often in parts of our world as an irrigation tool, a conduit for water, once it is cut down and hollowed out a bit...an image I have heard used to talk about what God can do with us, if we allow it...to be that channel through which his love flows to water the world with grace. I am grateful for that web of relationship, those interlocking circles that make me whole and grounded. And for the God who provides the right persons at the right time, and still uses and old plant like me when I too, allow it.